Network Saturation and Internal Migration of U.S. Immigrants to and from Leading Gateway Cities

James Elliott, Tulane University

Extensive research on immigrant incorporation in the United States has emphasized its spatial and economic concentration in leading gateway cities, providing limited understanding of foreign-born dispersion from these cities to other U.S. destinations. More recent research has documented immigrant settlement in “new destinations,” but it has treated these new destinations in isolation from traditional gateway regions. The goal of the proposed research is to address these gaps through an investigation of the increasing volume and selectivity of foreign-born outmigration from the nation’s two leading gateway regions (New York and Los Angeles) to other U.S. destinations. A central methodological goal will be to develop a research paradigm that will elucidate the extent to which such migratory flows stem from the saturation of local ethnic economies in these gateway regions and result in subsequent reproduction of similar employment concentrations elsewhere in the US.